Love Versus Darkness
by WingedArcher1
Summary: It's been 20 years after the war with Bern, and Ray and Sophia have been traveling the continent together, happily married and spreading the news that dark magic isn't quite as bad as everyone thinks it is. But when Ray decides to do something, something that got another member of his family killed, it may just show that one thing is stronger than the darkness. Love.
**A/n- If it's not obvious I'm in Sophia/Ray hell right now. And yes, this is a somewhat sequel to Feelings & Premonitions.**

Love Versus Darkness

 _"I want you to come with me of course, I mean if you want to. I plan on travelling the continent honing my skills even more, making it so our magic isn't feared anymore. What do you say Sophia?"_

 _"As long as I'm with you...I feel safe. Just promise me that we can visit Arcadia every now and then, Fa would be so disappointed."_

 _"I promise."_

Sophia woke up from her dream peacefully, well as peacefully as she could with the circumstances that had befallen her lately. She rolled over to face the man she loved still having the blissful unawareness of sleep enveloping him. He'd deny it, but he still looked kinda cute 20 years after they had first met. She knew why she had that dream though, she was worried about him. You see, they were in Ilia and it was the middle of winter. They hadn't planned on being here at this time, but that's life sometimes. It would have been okay, but Sophia had one of her visions, one of a horrible snowstorm that not even the Ilians would be prepared for. They had tried to warn the areas that would be hardest hit, but no one listened. Harsh winter storms were nothing to them, and they all figured that this storm would be no different. Ray wanted to leave them to their ignorance, but Sophia convinced him otherwise. This was all before she had a visit with a town cleric and received some interesting news. She couldn't tell Ray though, it would ruin his concentration, and she had heard the story of how Niime's son tried to do the same thing the two of them were going to attempt, and how it ended. She wasn't going to let that happen, not now.

"You okay? Hey Sophia!" She was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that Ray had woken up and was talking to her.

"Ah...sorry." She said snapping out of it. "I was just lost in my thoughts for a moment there."

"Are you okay, I could feel your heartbeat starting to speed up." Ray asked a bit concerned. It wasn't like this was the first time, but Ray knew Sophia well, something was up with her lately.

"I...had a dream." Sophia said not completely lying. "About when we decided to travel together after the war. It brought back memories." Ray smirked, buying it for the moment, thinking she meant something else entirely.

"Well, we can have time for that later, first we need to get to the business at hand. I'm sure the residents would prefer that to dying, even if they don't believe us." He was still a bit bitter, if you couldn't tell. Sophia blushed at his misconception, but didn't dare say any more on the subject, lest she tell him her secret.

"How are you feeling today?" She asked, changing the subject.

"I feel great actually." Ray said sitting up in the bed they had shared. "Which is good since today is the day the storm hits, right?" Sophia nodded.

"I haven't had any visions contradicting my first one, so today is the day." She told him. She very much enjoyed these close and intimate moments with him, she knew that she was one of the few people who got to see this softer side of him.

"Then I'm ready. Though maybe one kiss, for luck I mean." Ray said with his trademark smirk. Sophia gave him a small giggle for that and then leaned over him and placed her lips on his. But right then she had a vision. She was out in the middle of a snowy field, a forest to the left of her and Ray was walking into it.

 _"Ray, we did it! We stopped the blizzard."_ She could hear herself say, but Ray wasn't listening. He just kept walking into the forest silently with his tome in hand. _"Ray?"_ She asked catching up to him. She made him stop walking and looked into his eyes. They were cold and empty.

 _"Who is Ray?"_ He asked her and then the vision stopped. She fell back onto the bed, her heart rate rising again.

"Another vision?" Ray asked. It wasn't uncommon for her to get on when they kissed, because they had figured out that her visions were connected to her emotion. Sophia just nodded in response. "Was it about today?" She nodded again. "Then don't tell me, it could affect things, I want to do this my way because I believe I can do it."

"Alright...if you say so." Sophia said finally speaking. She was surprised she could speak at all because of how frightened she felt at the moment. She had to find a way to make her vision not happen, and fast because she was not going to lose him after everything they've been through. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"No, I'll make it this morning, you just rest up, I know how those visions take a toll on you." Ray said getting up and beginning to get dressed. "How does eggs and biscuits sound?" So they ate breakfast and after that Ray took one final study session with the tome he was going to use to stop the storm. He had gotten it from Niime before her death, it was the one that froze the river in Ilia that one time during the war, and he had to reverse engineer it to make it reverse snow effects. Now, it wasn't as easy as just reading the spell backwards, if it was his great uncle Canas would have been able to do it, he had to find the right combination of the words and syllables to get the intended effect. And it was hard to know if he had gotten it right without having a storm to test it on. He did end up unfreezing a river though a few days ago as a test, so that's why he was so confident that he would do it. So after that he and Sophia headed out to a clearing where the storm was going to pass through to get ready for it.

"I just want you to know that I love you, no matter what happens." Sophia told Ray as she held onto his arm for a bit before they began. She wasn't part of the main spell, but she was there for moral support and if any animals cam up while Ray was performing the spell.

"I love you too, but I'll be fine, trust me. You know how good I am." Ray said trying his best to sound confident. Truth was he was a bit worried about doing this, but that had never stopped him from doing anything in the past. There wasn't time for anymore words as the snow approached them from the north. Ray pulled out the tome and began reciting the words he had come up with. Black tendrils of dark magic started to creep out of the tome and it formed a semi-visible wall against the storm. It rose over fifty feet high, deforming a bit to catch the snow within itself. That was just the first part though. Next it started to radiate heat, not unlike a Fire tome, but unbenonst to Ray or even Sophia was that the magic was breaking the atomic bonds of the snow and water to cause the heat. All they knew was that it was working.

"See, it's not that bad." Ray said not even breaking a sweat. But he spoke just a bit too soon. This was only the beginning of what the storm was going to throw his way. Next the wind started to blow intensely and hail started to fall the size of gold coins.

"Ray." Sophia said worried that it might be too much for him.

"I got this, just have to give it more power." Ray strained as he concentrated harder on his barrier. The last time he used this much power was went he had the Apocalypse tome in the Dragon Temple. Which could be considered a bad thing, because he admitted long after the war that he had almost lost himself to the darkness at that time. The only thing that pulled him back was thinking of Sophia and what he wanted to ask her after the war. But the storm wasn't over yet. The winds picked up even more and the snow thickened so that you couldn't see a foot in front of yourself. The hail started to pierce the magic barrier and pelt Ray in the face.

"Ray, you need to stop, you're going to hurt yourself if you keep going!" Sophia yelled, but Ray couldn't hear her over the howling of the wind. All he knew was that he needed to tap into the last reserves of his power and hope that she could bring him back from the brink.

"ARRGH!" He yelled as pain throbbed all over his body as he poured his entire essence into sealing up the magic barrier and causing the heat it created to rise even higher. He had one final lucid thought before his mind blacked out. _Sophia, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you._

"Ray! NOO!" Sophia yelled as he fell to his knees. The storm was dissipating, but he wasn't moving at all and he was also barely breathing. "Ray, come on, don't leave me like this, you promised that you'd always be their for me." She was freaking out, and this wasn't even part of the vision she had. Suddenly though Ray stood up and began walking away from her. She looked to her left and saw a forest, just like in her vision. This time thought she didn't wait for him to reach it, she immediately ran in front of him and checked his eyes. They were cold and lifeless, but she could see a small spark in them this time. "Ray! Ray! Snap out of it!"

"Ray? Who is Ray?" He mumbled like in her vision and Sophia couldn't take it anymore. She fell to her knees and started to cry. But then she started to get angry, more at herself than anything and stood up again.

"Why?! Why does this have to happen to me now?!" She said starting to beat on Ray's chest. "We were going to start a family together! We were going to be happy and love each other and our child but now they're going to grow up without a father!" The part of Ray's mind that was still there registered what Sophia just said and connected the dots.

 _She's pregnant. She's pregnant with my child._ Those thoughts continued in his head and the kept getting stronger and louder until it started to overpower the darkness. _I'm going to be a father! I'm not going to die like mine did, they are not going through what I did._

"Do you have any names picked out yet?" He asked softly as he reached out his arms to hold Sophia as she sobbed.

"What?" She asked looking up at Ray. She saw that his eyes were back to normal and her entire face lit up with joy.

"Are you deaf? I asked if you have any names picked out for our child, because I have some ideas I might want to run past you first." He said smirking. Sophia tackled him to the ground in a hug she was so happy. "Hey, hey, be careful, you're pregnant."

"But I'm just so happy that you came back to me. Don't you ever scare me like that again!" She said a bit loudly.

"I promise. I guess I overestimated myself, for once." Ray admitted. "But one day, I'm going to have to lose myself you know?"

"What are you talking about Ray? That makes no sense." Sophia said confused.

"It does if you think about it. You're going to live a long time. Twenty years for me is like one for you, and the only way for me to match that is to do what Bramimond did and lose himself to live longer. That's why I'm so confident in myself, eventually I'll lose myself and not have to worry you any more." Ray explained.

"Ray, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say." Sophia told him. "Do you really think I would be happy with you as an empty husk? I married you because I love you, not your power or longevity. I know that I'm going to outlive you by a long time, but I want our time together to be happy and not stressful." For once she was being the forceful one.

"But-"

"No buts, I'm not going to let you throw your life away like that. Especially with a child on the way."

"How's this, I don't do anything like that again until our child is grown up, then we can talk about it again?" Ray proposed.

"I guess I can work with that." Sophia admitted. "But don't expect me to go down without a fight."

"I would expect any less from you." Ray told her. "Now, shouldn't we get out of this cold, it can't be good for the baby."

"You're going to be an over protective father, aren't you?" Sophia asked finally smiling again.

"And what's so wrong about that?"


End file.
